Archive for December, 2007

i love that media wonks will at times make ascertains like, obama hasn’t met enough time with his subcommittee on european affairs without providing proof that this stuff is true. or without giving background on what subcomittees do and how they fit into the overall picture of the primary committee, the foreign affairs committee. but i guess this is a leak coming out of the joe biden camp. the same guy who described obama as being the right kind of black guy back in january.

after searching the senate website, i found that yes, obama does head that particular committee. but no subcommittee listed including one that has to do with narcotics, lists meetings or any other policy information.

the salon journalist also asks that obama turn over his passport records to prove he has travelled in europe. which is ridiculous. the european union has the schenegan agreement, which means if you enter one country (minus the uk and ireland), you can travel freely within the other 27 countries without having to go through customes.

as the RIAA, the organization representing the u.s. music industry, continues on its useless crusade to stamp out downloaders, they’ve decided that now it is illegal to transfer files from a CD you actually bought in a shop to your own computer.

as the year draws to an end, could it be that this year started out with mel gibson’s mugshot, flashes of britney’s private parts, a mad possibly coke-filled car chase featuring lindsey l., and has ended with the head of the hilton clan declaring that he won’t be leaving paris and nikki billions when he kicks the big one.

fox movies will be available for rent on iTunes. it is thought that this announcement will be officially unveiled in january during macworld.

what sort of repercussions will this have on the film industry? is the film industry handing over their business model to apple as the music industry did in 2003 when universal music group and interscope geffen a&m records basically handed iTunes the celebrity rock band U2 on a plate?

being first lady is not quite like being john malkovich. if we could imagine what hillary clinton did as first lady, which say, laura bush doesn’t presently do. well, laura bush writes opinion pieces which have appeared in the like so the wall street journal. i don’t recall hillary clinton having done anything similar while she was first lady.

today, the new york times attempts to piece some of this together and finds that hillary did not sit in on national security meetings, that she did not have a high level security clearance, and that she wasn’t even speaking to bill clinton, due to the monica lewinsky scandal, when he bombed afghanistan.

so what did she do? well, like laura bush and nancy reagan and barabara bush before her, she travelled with her husband bill clinton. when he wasn’t in the lincoln bedroom, they pretty much hung out together. and sometimes she was allowed to fly solo, albeit with loads of secret service guys. we can conclude, unlike the bush twins, that neither hillary nor chelsea persuaded their secret service guys to wear hawaii shirts when they accompanied them for a night on the town.

but one day, someone will get around to asking this question, what did hillary rodham clinton do before she met bill? what was her version of a night on a town? we know this answer for george w. bush and for people like ted kennedy. did she ever smoke pot? snort coke? cut class? get a D.U.I.?

why is it that atheists and agnostics want to have their cake and eat it too? religious tolerance is important. but in this article, you have a situation whereby a family pulled their child from religion courses earlier in the year because the family doesn’t believe in god or doesn’t believe in religion or something like that. but now that christmas has come along, the parents wants their kid to celebrate christmas. the mother is quoted in the daily mail as saying: “i’ve helped out at the christmas party before and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with jesus.” tell that to mike huckabee.

so the geffen side of interscope, geffen, a&m records, laid off about 60 people. according to perez hilton, always a reliable source, it’s because the label lost about 18 mil on will.i.am, an eve single, and an artist by the name of nancy something-or-other. paul kremen, gm of geffen, and marketing wiz behind the u2 comeback in the early 00s, was let go as well.

it was also announced today that virgin sunset of the famous 9000 sunset boulevard, will be closing as well. the record store, which lost its oomph long before richard branson walked away, was a ‘great’ l.a. landmark of the 1990s. last year, the strip lost tower, this year, its losing virgin.

what does this mean for the music industry? well, that teens don’t want to hold stuff in their hands. but i’ve known this since i starting writing about digital distribution back in 1997.

iTunes days are numbered too. but it may take about 4 or 5 years for this phenomenon to fade as people grow more and more accustomed to listening to music and watching YouTube on their phones. which is most likely why apple introduced the iPhone. to sort of counter this. its inevitable. who wants to lug around 2 separate devices to get stuff done?

a few weeks back, brad pitt dropped out ofstate of play, directed by kevin macdonald you know, the guy who led forrest whittaker to an oscar, to be replaced by the more skilled russell crowe. now apparently –supposedly, edward norton has had to pull out due to a delay in filmming. does this bode well for the film? ben affleck is an okay actor when cast in an appropriate role. he was solid in ‘good will hunting.’ but maybe only because he played himself. and he was pretty great in that j.lo video. you know, ‘jenny from the block.’personally, i prefer this version: